Word: tia
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Ports 1961 is the brainchild of Tia Cibani, 33, a designer of Italian-Libyan parentage and Canadian citizenship whose international background and itinerant lifestyle inform the look of her eclectic and coolly modern clothes...
...dozens and not many locals spoke English. By 1994 he had worked with a few designers, and he persuaded his wife and her younger sister to give Xiamen a six-month try. "The deal," says Fiona, "was, if we didn't like it, we'd move home." Tia, who had been attending classes at Parsons School of Design in New York City, agreed to tag along. She left behind her friends and a boyfriend, "who said I was nuts," she laughs...
...their move. Neither had ever been to China or spoke Chinese. They understood little about their customers. "Our first season, we did a forest green for fall," Fiona recalls. "Ports had been known for that British look. But people here said, 'What is that? The mailman wears that.'" Meanwhile, Tia struggled with foreign suppliers. "Although Ports had a big reputation in North America, when we came here, we would go to the suppliers and say, 'Now we need our fabrics to come to China.' And they were like, 'No, we're not sending swatches to China. What's going...
...work was hard, adjusting to life was even harder. Social life, Tia recalls, meant seeing "the same 10 people over and over." The sisters flew to Hong Kong at least once a month just to buy groceries. But major moves had become something of a specialty for them. They had left Libya for Vancouver as young girls, and it wasn't long before the Cibanis adapted to their trial-by-fire China immersion. Ports International grew into the perfect hybrid of foreign cachet and local sensibility that Chinese woman craved. Many customers believed that the clothes they were buying...
Today women's fashion, Ports and the Cibanis are fixtures in China. Ports International, which Fiona has designed since Tia branched off to launch the 1961 line four years ago, has some 300 stores selling its classically feminine clothes to a loyal clientele of business executives and wives of government officials. Tia's line is targeted mainly at customers in North America and is carried by Saks and smaller boutiques, like Curve, in Los Angeles...